DEADLY ATTACK IN YEMEN
Suicide bombers target mosques
Suicide bombers hit a pair of mosques controlled by Shiite rebels on Friday in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, killing at least 137 people and wounding 350 others in the deadliest violence in decades.
A group claiming to be a Yemeni branch of Islamic State said it carried out the bombings and warned of an “upcoming flood” of attacks against the rebels, known as Houthis, who have taken over the capital and much of Yemen. The claim, posted online, could not immediately be independently confirmed and offered no proof of an Islamic State role.
If true, Friday’s bombing would be the first major attack by Islamic State supporters in Yemen and an ominous sign that the influence of the group that holds much of Iraq and Syria has spread to this chaotic nation. The claim was posted on the same web bulletin board where the Islamic State affiliate in Libya claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s deadly attack on a museum in Tunisia.
A significant presence of Islamic State supporters would add an alarming new element to the turmoil in this fragmenting nation. Yemen is already home to the most powerful branch of the al- Qaida network — which is a rival of Islamic State. On Friday, al- Qaida militants seized control of a southern provincial capital, al-Houta, in the group’s most dramatic grab of territory in years.
Meanwhile, the Shiite rebels’ capture of the capital and a large swath of the country — at least nine of its 21 provinces — has raised fears of a civil war tinged with sectarianism. The government of the internationally backed president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, has fled to the southern port city of Aden, where it battled on Thursday with supporters of the former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has allied with the Houthis.
Al- Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the Yemeni branch is called, has also been battling for months against the Houthis in various parts of the country. But the group issued an official statement denying it carried out Friday’s bombings, pointing to earlier instructions from the terror network’s leader Ayman alzawahri not to strike mosques or markets.